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Title: Not Snow Nor Rain
Author: Miriam Allen deFord
Release Date: November 18, 2019 [EBook #60725]
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NOT SNOW NOR RAIN ***
Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online
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Not Snow
Nor Rain
By MIRIAM ALLEN DeFORD
_Sam should have let the 22 nixies
go to the dead letter office ... or
gone there himself for sanctuary!_
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Worlds of If Science Fiction, November 1959.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
On his first day as a mail carrier, Sam Wilson noted that inscription,
cribbed from Herodotus, on the General Post Office, and took it to
heart: "Not snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night stays these
couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds."
It couldn't be literally true, of course. Given a real blizzard, it
would be impossible to make his way through the pathless drifts; and
if there had been a major flood, he could hardly have swum to deliver
letters to the marooned. Moreover, if he couldn't find the addressee,
there was nothing to do but mark the envelope "Not known at this
address," and take it back to be returned to the addresser or consigned
to the Dead Letter Office. But through the years, Sam Wilson had been
as consciously faithful and efficient as any Persian messenger.
Now the long years had galloped by, and this was the very last time he
would walk his route before his retirement.
It would be good to put his feet up somewhere and ease them back into
comfort; they had been Sam's loyal servants and they were more worn
out than he was. But the thought of retirement bothered him. Mollie
was going to get sick of having him around the house all day, and he
was damned if he was going to sit on a park bench like other discarded
old men and suck a pipe and stare at nothing, waiting for the hours to
pass in a vacuum. He had his big interest, of course--his status as a
devoted science fiction fan; he would have time now to read and reread,
to watch hopefully from the roof of his apartment house for signs of a
flying saucer. But that wasn't enough; what he needed was a project to
keep him alert and occupied.
On his last delivery he found it.
The Ochterlonie Building, way down on lower Second Avenue, was a
rundown, shabby old firetrap, once as solid as the Scotsman who had
built it and named it for himself, but now, with its single open-cage
elevator and its sagging floors, attracting only quack doctors and
dubious private eyes and similar fauna on the edge of free enterprise.
Sam had been delivering to it now for 35 years, watching its slow
deterioration.
This time there was a whole batch of self-addressed letters
for a tenant whose name was new to him, but that was hardly
surprising--nowadays, in the Ochterlonie Building, tenants came and
went.
They were small envelopes, addressed in blue, in printing simulating
handwriting, to Orville K. Hesterson, Sec.-Treas., Time-Between-Time,
746 Ochterlonie Building, New York 3, N. Y. Feeling them with
experienced fingers, Sam Wilson judged they were orders for something,
doubtless enclosing money.
* * * * *
In most of the buildings on his last route, Sam knew, at least by
sight, the employees who took in the mail, and they knew him. A lot
of them knew this was his last trip; there were farewells and good
wishes, and even a few small donations (since he wouldn't be there
next Christmas) which he gratefully tucked in an inside pocket of the
uniform he would never wear again. There were also two or three
invitations to a drink, which, being still on duty, he had regretfully
to decline.
But in the Ochterlonie Building, with its fly-by-night clientele, he
was just the postman, and nobody greeted him except Howie Mallory, the
decrepit elevator operator. Sam considered him soberly. It was going to
be pretty tough financially from now on; could he, perhaps, find a job
like Howie's? No. Not unless things got a lot tougher; standing all day
would be just as bad as walking.
He went from office to office, getting rid of his load--mostly bills,
duns and complaints, he imagined, in this hole. There was nothing for
the seventh floor except this bunch for Time-Between-Time.
The seventh floor? He must be nuts. The Ochterlonie Building was six
floors high.
Puzzled, he rang for Howie.
"What'd they do, build a penthouse office on top of this old dump?" he
inquired.
The elevator operator laughed as at a feeble jest. "Sure," he said
airily. "General Motors is using it as a hideaway."
"No, Howie--no fooling. Look here."
Mallory stared and shook his head. "There ain't no 746. Somebody got
the number wrong. Or they got the building wrong. There's nobody here
by that name."
"They couldn't--printed envelopes like these."
"O. K., wise guy," said Howie. "Look for yourself."
He led the way to the short flight of iron stairs and the trap door.
While Mallory stood jeering at him, Sam determinedly climbed through.
There was nothing in sight but the plain flat roof. He climbed down
again.
"Last letters on my last delivery and I can't deliver them," Sam Wilson
said disgustedly.
"Somebody's playing a joke, maybe."
"Crazy joke. Well, so long, Howie. Some young squirt will be taking his
life in his hands in this broken-down cage of yours tomorrow."
Sam Wilson, whom nothing could deter from the swift completion of
his appointed rounds, had to trudge back to the post office with 22
undelivered letters.
Years ago the United States Post Office gave up searching directories
and reference books, or deciphering illiterate or screwy addresses,
so as to make every possible delivery. That went out with three daily
and two Saturday deliveries, two-cent drop postage, and all the other
amenities that a submissive public let itself lose without a protest.
But there was still a city directory in the office. Sam Wilson
searched it stubbornly. Time-Between-Time was not listed. Neither was
Orville K. Hesterson.
There was nothing to do but consider the letters nixies and turn them
over to the proper department. If there was another bunch of them
tomorrow, he would never know.
* * * * *
Retirement, after the first carefree week, was just as bad as Sam
Wilson had suspected it was going to be. Not bad enough to think yet
about elevator operating or night watching, but bad enough to make
him restless and edgy, and to make him snap Mollie's head off until
they had their first bad quarrel for years. He'd never had time enough
before to keep up with all the science fiction magazines and books.
Now, with nothing but time, there weren't enough of them to fill the
long days. What he needed was something--something that didn't involve
walking--to make those endless hours speed up. He began thinking again
about those 22 nixies.
He sat gloomily on a bench in Tompkins Square in the spring sunshine:
just what he had sworn not to do, but if he stayed home another hour,
Mollie would heave the vacuum cleaner at him. In the public library he
had searched directories and phone books, for all the boroughs and for
suburban New Jersey, Connecticut and Pennsylvania; Orville K. Hesterson
appeared in none of them.
He didn't know why it was any of his business, except that
Time-Between-Time had put a blot on the very end of his 35-year record
and he wanted revenge. Also, it was something to do and be interested
in. In a way, science fiction and detection had a lot in common, and
Sam Wilson prided himself on his ability to guess ahead what was going
to happen in a story. So why couldn't he figure out this puzzle, right
here in Manhattan, Terra? But he was stymied.
Or was he?
Sam took his gloomy thoughts to Mulligan's. Every large city is
a collection of villages. The people who live long enough in a
neighborhood acquire their own groceries, their own drugstores,
their own bars. The Wilsons had lived six years in their flat, and
Mulligan's, catercornered across the street, was Sam's personal bar.
He was cautious as to what he said there. He'd heard enough backtalk
already when he had been indiscreet enough once, after four beers, to
express his views on UFOs. He had no desire to gain a reputation as a
crackpot. But it was safe enough to remark conversationally, "How do
you find out where a guy is when he says he's someplace and you write
him there and the letter comes back?"
"You ought to know, Sam," said Ed, the day barkeep. "You were a postman
long enough."
"If I knew, I wouldn't ask."
"Ask Information on the phone."
"He hasn't got a phone." That was the weirdest part of it--a business
office without a phone.
In every bar, at every moment, there is somebody who knows all the
answers. This somebody, a nondescript fellow nursing a Collins down the
bar, spoke up: "It could be unlisted."
Sam's acquaintance didn't include people with unlisted phones; he
hadn't thought of that.
"Then how do you find out his number?"
"You don't, unless he tells you. That's why he has it unlisted."
The police could get it, Sam thought. But they wouldn't, without a
reason.
"Hey, maybe this guy's office is in one of them flying saucers and he
forgot to come down and get his mail," Ed suggested brightly.
Sam scowled and walked out.
Nevertheless....
Nothing to do with UFOs, of course. That was ridiculous.
* * * * *
But suppose there was a warp in the space-time continuum? Suppose there
had once been another Ochterlonie Building, or some day in the future
there was going to be another one, somewhere in New York? There wasn't
another now, in any of the boroughs, or any other building with a name
remotely like it; his research had already established that.
Sam went back to the Public Library. The building he knew had been
erected in 1898. He consulted directories as far back as they went;
there never had been one of the name before. Then a time-slip from the
future?
That was hopeless, so far as he could do anything about it, so he cast
about for another solution. How about a parallel world?
That could be, certainly: some accident by which mail for that other
Ochterlonie Building, the seven-story one, had (maybe just once)
arrived in the wrong dimension.
He couldn't do anything to prove or disprove that, either. What he
needed was a break.
He got it.
One morning in early summer his own mailbox in the downstairs hallway
disgorged a long envelope, addressed to Mr. Samuel Wilson. The upper
left-hand corner bore a printed return address: Time-Between-Time, 746
Ochterlonie Building, New York 3, N. Y. He raced upstairs, locked
himself in the bathroom, the one place Mollie couldn't interrupt him,
and tore the envelope open with trembling fingers.
It was a form letter, with the "Dear Mr. Wilson" not too accurately
typed in. It enclosed one of those blue-printed envelopes in simulated
handwriting. The letterhead carried the familiar impossible address,
but no phone number.
Maybe it was chance, maybe it was ESP, but he himself had got onto
Time-Between-Time's mailing list!
* * * * *
He had trouble focusing his eyes to read the letter.
Dear Mr. Wilson:
Would you invest $1 to get a chance at $1,000?
Of course you would, especially if, win or lose, you got your
dollar back.
In this atomic age, yesterday's science fiction has become today's
and tomorrow's science fact. Time-Between-Time, a new organization,
is planning establishment of a publishing company to bring out the
best in new books, both fact and fiction, in the field of science,
appealing to people who have never been interested until now.
Before we start, we are conducting a poll to find out what the
general public thinks and feels about our probabilities of success.
We're asking for your co-operation.
Our statisticians have told us that from the answers to one
question--which may look off the beam but isn't--we can make a
pretty good estimate. Here it is:
If tomorrow morning a spaceship landed in front of your house, and
from it issued a band of extraterrestrial beings, who might or
might not be human in appearance, what, in your best judgment,
would be your own immediate reaction? Check one, or if you agree
with none of the choices, indicate in the blank space beneath what
your personal reaction would probably be.
1. Phone for the police. 2. Attack the aliens physically. 3. Faint.
4. Run away. 5. Call for assistance to seize the visitors. 6. Greet
them, attempt to communicate, and welcome them in the name of your
fellow-terrestrials. 7. Other (please specify).
Return this letter, properly marked, in the enclosed envelope. To
defray promotion expenses, enclose a dollar bill (no checks or
money orders).
At the conclusion of this poll, all answers will be evaluated. The
writer of the one which comes nearest to the answer reached by our
electronic computer, which will be fed the same question, will
receive $1,000 in dollar bills. Ties will receive duplicate prizes.
In addition, all participants, when our publishing firm has been
established, will receive for their $1 a credit form entitling
them to $1 off any book we publish.
Don't delay. Send in your answer NOW. Only letters enclosing $1
will be entered.
Very truly yours,
Time-Between-Time,
Orville K. Hesterson,
Sec.-Treas.
* * * * *
Sam Wilson read the letter three times. "It's crazy," he muttered.
"It's a gyp."
What he ought to do was take the letter to the post office--Mr. Gross
would be the one to see--and let them decide whether this Hesterson was
using the mails to defraud. Let Mr. Gross and his department try to
find 746 in the six-story Ochterlonie Building. As a faithful employee
for 35 years, it was Sam's plain duty.
But then it would be out of his hands forever; he'd never even find out
what happened. And he'd be back in the dull morass that retirement was
turning out to be.
"Sam!" Mollie yelled outside the locked door. "Aren't you ever coming
out of there?"
"I'm coming, I'm coming!" He put the letter and its enclosure back in
the envelope and placed them in a pocket.
Time enough to decide that afternoon what he was going to do.
He escaped after lunch to what was becoming his refuge on a park
bench. There he read the letter for the fourth time. For a long while
he sat ruminating. About three o'clock he walked to the General Post
Office--walking had become a habit hard to break--and hunted up the man
who now had his old route, a youngster not more than 30 named Flanagan.
From the letter Sam extracted the return envelope.
"You been delivering any like this?" he asked.
Flanagan peered at it.
"Yeah," he said. "Plenty." He looked worried. "Gee, Wilson, I'm glad
you came in. There's something funny about those deliveries, and I
don't want to get in Dutch."
"Funny how?"
"My very first day on the route, I started up to the seventh floor of
that building to deliver them--and there wasn't any seventh floor. So I
asked the old elevator man--"
"Howie Mallory. I know him. He's been there for years."
"I guess so. Anyway, he said it was O. K. just to give them to him.
He showed me a paper, signed with the name of this outfit, by the
secretary or something--"
"Orville K. Hesterson," Sam said.
"That was it--saying that all mail for them was to be delivered to the
elevator operator until further notice. So I've been giving it to him
ever since--there's a big bunch every day. Is something wrong, Sam?
Have I pulled a boner? Am I going to be in trouble?"
"No trouble. I'm just checking--little job they asked me to do for
them, seeing I'm retired." Sam was surprised at the glibness with which
that fib came out.
Flanagan looked still more worried. "He said their office was being
remodeled or something, so he was looking after their mail till they
could move in."
"Sure. Don't give it another thought." Another idea occurred to him; he
lowered his voice. "I oughtn't to tell you this, Flanagan, but every
new man on a route, they kind of check up on him the first few weeks,
see if he's handling everything O.K. I'll tell them you're doing fine."
"Hey, thanks. Thanks a lot."
"Don't say anything about this. It's supposed to be secret."
"Oh, I won't."
Sam Wilson waved and walked out. He sat on the steps a while to think.
Was old Howie Mallory pulling a fast one? Was _he_ Orville K.
Hesterson? Had he cooked up a scheme to make himself some crooked money?
* * * * *
Three things against that. First, those nixies the first day: why
wouldn't Mallory have told him the same thing he told Flanagan? Sam
would have believed him, if he had said they were building an office on
the roof and giving it a number.
Second, Howie just wasn't smart enough. Of course he could be fronting
for the real crook. But Sam had known him for years, and old Howie had
always seemed downright stupidly honest. A man doesn't suddenly turn
into a criminal after a lifetime of probity.
Third, if this was some fraudulent scheme involving Mallory, nobody the
old man knew--least of all the postman who used to deliver mail to that
very building--would ever have been allowed to appear on the sucker
list.
Sam Wilson thought some more. Then he hunted up the nearest pay phone
and called Mollie.
"Mollie? Sam. Look, I just met an old friend of mine--" he picked a
name from a billboard visible from the phone booth--"Bill Seagram, you
remember him--oh, sure you do; you've just forgotten. Anyway, he's
just here for the day and we're going to have dinner and see a show.
Don't wait up for me. I might be pretty late.... No, I'm _not_ phoning
from Mulligan's.... Now you know me, Mollie; do I ever drink too
much?... Yeah, sure, he ought to've asked you too, but he didn't. O.K.,
he's impolite. Aw, Mollie, don't be like that--"
She hung up on him.
Sam Wilson stood concealed in a doorway from which he could see the
cramped lobby of the Ochterlonie Building. It was ten minutes before
somebody entered it and rang for the elevator. The minute Howie Mallory
started up with his passenger, Sam darted into the building and started
climbing the stairs. He heard Mallory passing him, going down again,
but the elevator wasn't visible from the stairway. On the sixth floor,
after a quick survey to see that the hall was clear and the doors
closed that he had to pass, he found the iron steps to the trapdoor.
The roof was just as empty as the other time he had visited it. No, it
wasn't. In a corner by the parapet, weighted with a brick to keep it
from blowing away, was a large paper bag. Sam picked up the brick and
looked inside. It was stuffed with those blue-printed return envelopes.
He looked carefully about him. There were buildings all around,
towering over the little old Ochterlonie Building. There were plenty
of windows from which a curious eye could discern anything happening
on that roof. But at night anybody in those buildings would be either
working late or cleaning offices, with no reason whatever to go to a
window; and Sam was sure nothing was going to happen till after dark.
It was a warm day and he had been carrying his coat. He folded it and
put it down near the paper bag and sat on it with his back against the
parapet. He cursed himself for not having had more foresight; he should
have brought something to eat and something to read. Well, he wasn't
going to climb down all those stairs and up again. He lighted his pipe
and began waiting.
He must have dozed off, for he came to himself with a start and found
it was almost dark. The paper bag was still there. It was just as well
he had slept; now he'd have no trouble staying awake and watching. He
might very well be there all night--in fact, he'd have to be, whether
anything happened or not. The front door would be locked by now. Mollie
would have a fit, but he had his alibi ready.
There was only one explanation left. Not time travel. Not alternate
universes. Not an ordinary confidence game. Not--decidedly not--a hoax.
If he was wrong, then tomorrow morning he'd take the whole business to
Mr. Gross. But he had a hunch he wasn't going to be wrong.
* * * * *
It was 12:15 by his wristwatch when he saw it coming.
It had no lights; nobody could have spotted it as it appeared suddenly
out of nowhere and climbed straight down. It landed lightly as a drop
of dew. The port opened and a small, spare man, very neatly dressed,
as Sam could see with eyes accustomed to the darkness, stepped out.
Orville K. Hesterson in person.
He tiptoed quickly to the paper bag. Then he saw Sam and stopped
short. Sam reached out and grabbed a wrist. It felt like flesh, but he
couldn't be sure.
"Who are you? What are you doing here?" the newcomer said in a strained
whisper, just like a scared character in a soap opera. So he spoke
English. Good: Sam didn't speak anything else.
"I'm from the United States Post Office," Sam replied suavely. Well, he
had been, long enough, hadn't he?
"Oh. Well, now look, my friend--"
"_You_ look. Talk. How much are you paying the elevator operator to put
your mail up here every day?"
"Five dollars a day, in dollar bills, six days a week, left in the
empty bag," answered Hesterson--it must be Hesterson--sullenly. "That's
no crime, is it? Call this my office, and call that my rent. All I need
an office for is to have somewhere to get my letters."
"Letters with money in them."
"We have to have funds for postage, don't we?"
"What about the postage on the first mailing list, before you got any
dollars to pay for stamps?"
If it had been a little lighter, Sam would have been surer of the alarm
that crossed Hesterson's face.
"I--well, we had to fabricate some of your currency for that. We
regretted it--we aim to obey all local rules and regulations. As soon
as we have enough coming in, we intend to send the amount to the New
York postmaster as anonymous conscience money."
"How about the $1,000 prize? And those dollar book credits?"
"Oh, that. Well, we say '_when_ our publishing firm has been
established,' don't we? That publishing thing is just a gimmick. As for
the $1,000, we give no intimation of when the poll will end."
Sam tightened his grasp on the wrist, which was beginning to wriggle.
"I see. O.K., explain the whole setup. It sounds crazy to me."
"I couldn't agree with you more," said Mr. Hesterson, to Sam's
surprise. "That's exactly what, in our own idiom, I told--" Sam
couldn't get the name; it sounded like a grunt. "But he's the boss and
I'm only a scout third class." His voice grew plaintive. "You can't
imagine what an ordeal it is, almost every week, to have to land in a
secluded place where I can hide the flyer, make my way to New York, and
buy a bunch of stamps and mail a batch of letters in broad daylight. We
can simulate your paper and printing and typing well enough, but"--that
grunt again--"insists we use genuine stamps. I told you we try to
follow all your laws, as far as we possibly can. It's very difficult
for me to keep this absurd shape for long at a time; I'm exhausted
after every trip. I can assure you, these little night excursions
from the mother-ship to pick up the letters are the very least of my
burdens!"
"What in time does your boss think he's going to gain by such a screwy
come-on?"
"'In time'? Oh, just an idiomatic phrase. Like our calling our
organization Time-Between-Time, time of course being just a dimension
of space. I learned your tongue mostly from the B.B.C. and I don't
always understand your speech in New York. My dear sir, do you here
on this planet ask your bosses why they concoct their plans? Mine has
a very profound mind; that's why he is the boss. All I know is that he
persuaded the Council to try it out. A softening-up process--isn't that
what you people call it when you use it in your silly wars with one
another?"
"Softening for what?" But Sam Wilson knew the answer already.
* * * * *
"Why, for the invasion, of course," said Orville K. Hesterson, whose
own name was probably a grunt. "Surely you must be aware that, with
planetwide devastation likely and even imminent, every world whose
inhabitants can live comfortably under extreme radiation is looking to
yours--Earth, as you call it--as a possible area for colonization? So
many planets are so terribly overcrowded--there's always a rush for a
new frontier. We've missed out too often; this time we're determined to
be first."
"I'll be darned," said Sam, "if I can see how that questionnaire would
be any help to you."
"But it's elementary, as I believe one of your famous law-enforcers
once declared. First of all, we're gaining a pretty good idea of what
kind of reception we're likely to meet when we arrive, and therefore
whether we're going to need weapons to destroy what will be left of the
population, or can reasonably expect to take over without difficulty.
We figure that a cross-section of one of your largest cities will be
a pretty good indication, and we can extrapolate from that. In the
second place, the question itself is deliberately worded to startle the
recipients, who have never in their lives contemplated such a thing as
an extraterrestrial visitor--"
"Not me. I'm a science fiction fan from way back. It's all old stuff to
me."
Hesterson clicked his tongue--or at least the tongue he was wearing.
"Oh, dear, that _was_ an error. We tried particularly not to include
on our lists subscribers to any of your speculative periodicals. That
wasn't my mistake, thank goodness; it was another scout who had the
horrible job of spending several days here and compiling the lists.
Under your present low radioactivity it's real agony for us."
"I'll tell you one mistake you did make, though," said Sam angrily.
"You ought to've arranged with the elevator man before your first lot
of answers was due. If you want to know, that's how I got onto the
whole thing. I'm a mail carrier--I'm retired now, but I was then--and
I was the one supposed to deliver the first batch. Mallory--that's the
elevator operator--laughed in my face and told me there wasn't any
746 in this building, and I had to take the letters back to the post
office--on my _last_ delivery!" Sam couldn't keep the bitterness out of
his voice. "After 35 years--well, that's neither here nor there. But I
didn't like that and I made up my mind to find out what was happening."
"So that's it. Oh, dear, dear. I'll have to compensate for that or I
_will_ be in trouble."
Sam had had enough. "You are in trouble right now," he growled, pushing
the little alien back against the parapet. "We're staying right here
till morning, and then I'm going to call for help and take you and your
flying saucer or whatever it is straight to the F.B.I."
The counterfeit Mr. Hesterson laughed.
"Oh, no indeed you aren't," he said mildly. "I can slip right back into
my own shape whenever I want to--the only reason I haven't done it
yet is that then I wouldn't have the equipment to talk to you--and I
assure you that you couldn't hold me then. On the contrary. As you just
pointed out to me, I did make one bad error, and my boss doesn't like
errors. I have no intention of making another one by leaving you here
to spread the news."
"What do you mean?" Sam Wilson cried. For the first time, after the
years of accustomedness to the idea of extraterrestrial beings, a
thrill of pure terror shot through him.
"This," said the outsider softly.
* * * * *
Before Sam could take another breath, the wrist he was holding slid
from his grasp, all of Mr. Hesterson slithered into something utterly
beyond imagining, and Sam found himself enveloped in invisible chains
against which he was unable to make the slightest struggle. He felt
himself being lifted and thrown into the cockpit. Something landed on
top of him--undoubtedly the package of prize entries and dollar bills.
His last conscious thought was a despairing one of Mollie.
Sam Wilson, devoted mail carrier, was making a longer trip than any
Persian courier ever dreamed of, and not snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor
gloom of night could stay him from his appointed round.
But he may not be gone forever. If he can be kept alive on that planet
in some other solar system, they plan to bring him back as Exhibit One
whenever World War III has made Earth sufficiently radioactive for
Orville K. Hesterson's co-planetarians to live here comfortably.
End of Project Gutenberg's Not Snow Nor Rain, by Miriam Allen deFord
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